I have suffered from an illness which almost cost me my life..I was diagnosed 4 years ago with Cancer of the lungs, stage 4..

I have undergone many tiring procedure and even went overseas to find a cure.

It is Ina Poon Bato who made it possible for me to counter all the pain and hardships that is brought by my illness..For making it possible for me to walk long distances just to fulfill Her wish to be sent to Mindanao to have Ina visit the churches there even if I can't barely walk( which I did on High heels for the procession in Mindanao for 11 days)..

The doctors did an ultrasound and they saw the presence of water in my lungs(pleural effusion)I even coughed blood and my creatinine level was high.The next day ,I vomited about 1.5liters of water,then I told my nurse that I heard a soothing voice of a woman and we had a conversation.But all I remembered was the part where She told me that I’m going to be okay.And somehow,I feel relieved.Then I went back to the hospital for further tests to see the extent of damage on my lungs and to check my creatinine level--but miraculously the results turned normal and the fluid on my lungs was nowhere to be found.It was really a miracle not even the doctors could believe the result of my Xray and my Laboratory test...

I am thankful to the Doctors for their efforts to cure me and to the letter that the late Cardinal Sin sent me which I was only able to read 20 years after receiving it .But I attributed most of it to the Lord and to Mama Mary. My devotion to the Blessed Mother "Ina Poon Bato".Nothing really is impossible through Mama Mary and the Lord.

I have been sick for 4 years but i haven't undergone even a single session of chemotherapy or surgery. I feel very much better now that I was able to make this website for Ina Poon Bato not just to tell the world about her miracles on me but also on other people’s lives.

(Photo: Taken after Ina's Canonical Blessing by Blessed Pope John Paul II on October 30 on her birthday at the Birthplace of Jesus in Bethlehem at the Holy Land.)

Historical Sketch

(The following has been pieced together from the personal account of Mrs. Rosellyn Enciso Magsaysay, documents and photos she has collected through the years and articles in various publications in the Philippines elsewhere on the travels of the image of Ina Poonbato and on favors received by devotees.It hopes to usher in a more detailed and more authoritative account of the manifestations of the Blessed Virgin in her role of Mediatrix of world peace.)

It was Holy Thursday at 7pm in 1981 when the jeep bearing Mother Therese of the Holy Face religious community and an image of the Blessed Mother arrived at the gates of the Magsaysay residence in Castillejos Zambales.The religious sister told Rosellyn Magsaysay that the message of the Blessed Mother was for Rosellyn to bring Her around not only in Zambales but in the whole world,and to call her "Ina"--"Mother".

The image was a replica sculpted by Maximo Vicente ,father of Mother Therese and noted Filipino sculptor of Holy Icons.He based his work on the wooden image of what the Aeta tribes in Zambales have been venerating for centuries.

The image is believed to antedate the discovery of the tribes and their habitat by spanish missionaries on the western slopes of the mountain ranges rising on that part of Luzon topped by Mount Pinatubo.

The Aeta call the image "Apo Apang" which in their vernacular means "little Queen".

Later, when Spanish Missionaries set up a mission in Botolan early the 17th century, they brought down the image from the mountains and installed it in their makeshift church, placing it at the top of the altar.

The Aeta would come down from form their mountain lairs in their colorful costumes,to pay homage to the image during the feast of their "little Queen",bearing gifts with them.

Almost three centuries later,when the Aglipayans, the native clerical group which came with the late 19th Century Philippine Revolution, took control of Zambales, devotees took their Apo Apang to the Aglipayan church,where since it took the title of "Nuestra Senora De la Paz y Buen Viaje"--"Our Lady of Peace and Good Voyage"

When Mother Therese arrived in Castillejos that day in 1981,Rosellyn Magsaysay had just returned form a church in Castillejos , where she had attended the yearly Holy Week rituals commemorating the passion and the death of Christ on Calvary.

Photo Above: The lost Grotto of Ina Poon Bato

Told of the message of the Blessed Mother,Rosellyn inwardly balked.Being a convert to Catholicism, which came with her marriage with Vic Magsaysay,she was still feeling at the time out of her depth in the vagaries of her newly embraced faith,including,by her own admission,not even knowing how to say the rosary.

A year before Mother Therese brought the Blessed Mother to Rosellyn,she experienced and ecstasy at 12noon on her house at Princeton Wack-Wack wherein she saw an unknown image inside a church a statue of the blessed Mother where she took the image,and then suddenly a man in wite robe approached her and told Rosellyn,"She's yours" .

Then the incident was explained to her by Fr. Duggan (Rosellyn's spiritual adviser at that time) as Jesus(the man in White Robe) giving Ina Poon Bato as a gift.As Bishop Byrne ecclesiastically approved the propagation of faith through the "Rosary Rally Crusade for World Peace" which was her first project for spiritual upliftment of Balikatan sa Kaunlaran as Public Relations officer(P.R.O).

Perhaps sensing her tentativeness,Mother Therese told her,"You need not worry.She will take care"

It being late,they transferred the image to Rosellyn's car for her to bring the image home to Castillejos, while the religious sister take the road back to Manila.

When Rosellyn got into her car, she found her secretary,Sonia O. Cervantes,in near hysterics.The girl was almost beside herself, pointing to the image.Rosellyn herself saw the solemn look in the face of the blessed Mother's face taking on the ghost of a smile.

When they arrived at the house in Castillejos,they planted the image on a place of prominence.Then they called an old hand, Aling Trining, who was well known among locals for her religious devotion and healing,to lead the rosary.

After the rosary,when they were singing the "Our Father"in vernacular,they heard,at first faintly, then very distinctly a beautiful voice singing along with them.As their voices faded at hearing the Disembodied Voice,it went on until the final notes of the song.

The following day,Good Friday, they prayed the rosary again. This time while they were praying,large black creatures, looking like huge insects,wormed out of the ground all around the house.These lifted into the air as if sucked by a tremendous force, spiraling like a tornado, and vanished in the ether.

When the guards rushed out and farmhands checked the ground for them, they could not find any traces, not even holes.

Holy Saturday marks the end of Lenten Mourning,the breaking of the fasting and abstinence.In the Philippines,it is celebrated with the making and sharing of sweets and other food stuff.In the Magsaysay Compound,they held a procession for zina to Aling Trining's small house chapel outside the compound.

Lo and behold, the birds in the neighborhood were seen making a beeline to the chapel,as if joining the small and short procession, chirping and frolicking in the air.

*****

It was not the first time that Mother Therese and Rosellyn's paths would cross ,nor the last.

Being the Wife of a local political family,whose star rose with the late President Ramon Magsaysay,husband Vic's uncle, Rosellyn found herself in the thick of civic and religious activities.

When the Rosary Rally Crusade reached Zambales,she was at the forefront of activities as provincial chapter chair of the women-based BSK (Balikatan sa Kaunlaran, or "Pulling together for Development") movement set in motion by then First Lady Imelda Marcos.BSK was the power behind the crusade nationwide.

Among her tasks in Zambales part of the crusade last year was to provide the Holy image to be used in the procession.

She had an officehand look for a suitable one and bring it to Zambales.

As fate would have it,the assistant could not find one,despite much searching, except in one shop.There the only sculpture available was a commissioned job and,worse, paid for.

Rosellyn had to take matters on hand and personally called the shop and talked with the owner,plumbing her powers of persuasion. The shop-owner gave in, but only after knowing who she was and ascertaining where the image would be used.

The shop happened to be that of Maximo Vicente,the noted religious sculptor and father of Mother Therese.

Unknown to Rosellyn,it was to Maximo Vicente that sometime in 1976 the then Irish Priest of Botolan, Father Patrick Duggan,went to have the Botolan image of Ina Replica.

For this purpose,the priest had borrowed the image at the Catholic church in Botolan and brought it to the sculptor.

Fr. Duggan was the spiritual adviser of Rosellyn at that time and until he left years later for his homeland .

Much earlier ,while visiting her brother one day, Mother Therese noticed the image of Ina in the works.She was so taken by the statuette that she requested her father one for herself.When she got one,she had it placed on a table on her bedside.

It was this image that she brought Rosellyn that day in 1981.

It was also to be the one that Rosellyn, summoned by Holy face religious Sisters,brought to mother Therese on her deathbed.

Mother Therese Vicente,who had been a Carmelite nun before she founded her own religious community,was the close companion of another nun in Lipa,Batangas,convent to whom the Blessed Mother was believed to have often appeared.bringing with Her each time a shower and scent of rose petals.

She was to be a close companion of Rosellyn during the travels of Ina to Various places inthe Philippines and in other countries.

She was with the Philippine delegation headed by Archbishop Paciano Ancieto and Rosellyn, when they brought Ina Poon Bato to Rome on the occassion of the 7th anniversary of Pope John Paul as head of the catholic world on October 16,1985.

*****

That Sunday in 1981--actually Resurrection Sunday--was also to be the start of the Rosary Rally Crusade in Zambales,with the image of the Blessed Mother borne in a procession to towns of the province.

From the Magsaysay residence in Castillejos,the Capital Town,Ina was to be given a ceremonial welcome at the municipal building,but the mayor could not attend.

Mayor Rodrigo Timor had been bedridden since two months ago at the time, could not walk, and reportedly wad dying from a spreading arthritic ailment.

But when the Image approached approached the perimeter of the town,the mayor was seen coming out of his jeep and leading the welcome crowd.

At the municipal hall,he amazed subalterns when he stood and delivered his speech.He was present all throughout the vigil,without sleep,and personally joined the procession marshals when the image left the following day,walking with the procession of all 9 kilometers to the boundary of the next town.

At Barangay Baretto at the boundary of Botolan,it was Fr.Duggan who welcomed the image.A man who had been known to his town mates as suffering from advance arthritis,approached the image and asked the Virgin's intercession for cure.

The priest sprinkled Holy Water on the man, and the man declared with great joy that the pain was gone,that he was cured.

Source: Ina Poon Bato and the Interfaith Assembly for World Peace(2003)